


Things That Go Bump in the Night

by Living_Underground



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, I just wanted to write some sweet pregnant Scully and caring Mulder, Mostly Fluff, but with a tiny touch of angst, late season 8, not much, unborn baby william
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29667381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Underground/pseuds/Living_Underground
Summary: Mulder and Scully talking about the baby in season 8. It's sickly sweet and fluffy.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 2
Kudos: 73





	Things That Go Bump in the Night

Sodium light striped the room, filtering through the Venetians onto the bed, the figures curled within it.

It was the first time she’d had him wrapped around her, shielding her and protecting her back from the world, since Oregon. Since he was abducted. Since he was buried. Since he returned. The ragdoll, the family heirloom, perched on her bedside table.

She was warm for the first time since he’d enveloped her in Bellefleur.

‘Holy shit!’ he snatched his hand away when something underneath it gave a rippling jab. ‘What the-?’

‘Either you’ve got someone trying to high five you, or you’ve got someone trying to play footsie with you,’ she murmured sleepily.

‘Fucking hell. That was the baby?’

‘Uh-huh,’ she murmured sleepily, eyes still shut, ‘been moving more since you came home. Knows you’re here.’

Mulder sat up, flicking the lamp on the bedside cabinet on, pulling the sheet back, ‘can I?’ he reached over to Scully’s stomach, fingers hesitating over her stretched skin. She squinted her eyes open at the brightness and glared at him before rolling her eyes and shifting over to lay on her back, heaving a tired sigh and nodding. He spread his hand out, brushed his thumb back and forth. Another sharp kick and he jumped again. ‘I…I guess I never realised how strong those little kicks could get.’

She scooted backwards, propping herself against the pillows, rolled her t-shirt up to tuck it under her boobs and rested her hand over his before guiding it further, ‘rub here.’

He gasped at the press of a tiny hand, ‘holy fuck, look at that. That’s insane. It’s a hand, she’s got a hand-’

‘ _They_ have two hands, Mulder. Two feet as well.’

‘I just...I never knew you could actually...y’know...see those little hands and feet.’

‘Hmm. Go grab my bag from the cupboard.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve just had a thought. Go get it.’ He nodded, clambered from the bed and scrambled to get her bag from the living room, dropping it on the foot of the bed. ‘Side pocket. My stethoscope.’

‘Something wrong?’ he furrowed his brow as he dug it out, passing it over.

‘No, just come up here,’ she waved him up, biting her lip as she slipped the earbuds in and placed the diaphragm on her taut skin, hushing him for a moment as she slid it slightly further down, revealing a grin when she found the right place, ‘take the earpieces.’

He did, putting them on, and letting her take his hand and placing it where the little kicks had been, giving a shaky breath when he heard the rapid beating of the baby’s heart. ‘Insane,’ a whispered breath. ‘Do...Scully, do you have any pictures?’

‘Pictures? Like the ultrasound?’ she reached into her bedside drawer, where she had been hiding them, not wanting to look at them and deal with them without Mulder by her side. And then, when Mulder was by her side, she’d had much more important things to deal with, like trying to ease him into the realisation he would be a father.

She passed the two grainy grey images over, watched as he traced his fingers over them. ‘That’s not really what I meant.’

‘Oh?’

‘Pictures of you. I want to see pictures of you. From when I was...gone. I mean, I can imagine you pregnant, less pregnant than now but still, y’know, but I want to see it. I want...I need to see the things I missed,’ he was pleading, sitting up to face her and grasping at her hands as her eyes watered and her face fell.

She hadn’t taken any. It had never occurred to her, early on, as she lay a palm on her still-flat stomach. And later, when her mother suggested she might want photos to remember her pregnancy after helping her shop for maternity clothes, she’d shaken her head and let her depression swallow her because she didn’t want to remember it. She wanted it to be over. She wanted to not cry herself to sleep every night. She wanted Mulder’s shirts to still smell like him, and not of her. She wanted to not feel guilty for not wanting to live when she still carried the world’s last connection to Fox William Mulder. She hadn’t wanted to remember any of it.

Because no matter how many people surrounded her and offered her support, she was alone. She was only half of herself. And why would she want to remember the cavernous crater of her chest where Mulder had been ripped from her?

She hadn’t expected him to come back. Not once she buried him. So she hadn’t bothered. She hadn’t wanted to know. She’d spent the months he was in the ground working and sleeping and crying. She’d go to the office, just to feel closer to him, and then end up at his apartment, in his sheets and his shirts, doing her best to ignore the life growing inside her, hating herself for having prayed for it. Hating that she didn’t have the one thing she wanted; the one thing she couldn’t live without. She’d been in a stupor, had flinched not when the baby rolled or kicked but when she knocked the framed photo of her and Mulder in the office, shattered the glass.

And now he was begging her for all those months he’d missed, and she couldn’t give them to him because she’d missed them too.

So she shrugged and tried to pull on the brave face she’d been hiding behind for months, but with him in her bed staring at her she couldn’t, and she crumbled, folding in on herself and turning out of his grasp.

‘Hey, hey, what’s wrong?’

‘I don’t have them. I didn’t take any. I couldn’t.’

‘Oh, Honey. Oh, no don’t cry, no, it’s okay,’ he gathered her into his arms, stethoscope and sonograms discarded by her bag at the foot of the bed, ‘hey, I don’t mind. I understand.’

‘I couldn’t, Mulder. You were gone and I couldn’t.’

He nodded into the top of her head, holding her as she shook, letting his own tears seep into her hair, ‘it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay,’ perhaps if he kept telling her, they’d both start to believe it. They stayed that way, breathing together as their presence soothed one another until inspiration struck Mulder and he clambered off the bed, dragging his jeans and t-shirt on, ‘wait here, okay. I’ve got an idea.’

‘Where you going?’ she snuffled, trying to clear her throat and brush her tears away, still curled in on herself.

‘It’s a surprise. Give me twenty – I’ll be back, I promise,’ she didn’t look convinced, so he gave her a comforting smile and dropped a kiss to her forehead, ‘trust me. I’ll be back in twenty, fifteen even. Just, stay here. How about I run you a bath?’

‘It’s half eleven, Mulder.’

‘And a bath will relax you. Look, I’ll go run it and by the time I’m back you’ll be so relaxed you’ll have forgotten I even went out,’ he gravitated towards her bathroom, spinning the taps and sorting through the myriad of bottles and jars she kept on the shelves, calling through ‘are there any bubbles or salts or oils you can’t use at the moment? Any that you prefer?’

‘The lavender bath soak, but not too much, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he reappeared in the doorway moments later, resting his head against the doorjamb as he smiled over at her, ‘you’re beautiful, you know that?’

‘Mulder, stop.’

‘No,’ he grinned, pushing himself away from the wall and over to her bedside, helping her up, ‘you’re beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning. Jaw-dropping. I could keep going all night, but your bath will get cold,’ he walked her through to the bathroom, pulled her t-shirt over her head, pressed a kiss first to her cheek, then her lip, ‘beautiful. I’ll be back in twenty, okay?’ She nodded as he helped her into the water, settling amongst the bubbles.

Twenty-five minutes later he was banging his hip on her side table in his haste to get through to her, unwrapping his purchase on his way. She was humming out of tune to herself when he reached the bathroom, swirling patterns of suds across her belly. She hadn’t noticed him and before she could he clicked on the camera and autofocused on her, triggering the shutter and grinning as she startled at the noise.

Her head whipped around and she stared at him, back in his slouching position against the doorframe, camera dangling from his wrist and a polaroid held between two fingers.

‘ _Mulder!’_ her tone scandalised, eyes wide.

‘Relax.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Documenting. For both of us,’ his smile was that of an eager schoolboy, sure he’d gotten something right, and she couldn’t help but relent at it.

‘Help me out?’

‘Sure thing,’ he dropped the photo to the countertop, pocketed the camera, and offered his hands to her, helping as she found her balance and centre of gravity, taking her weight as she stepped out onto the tile floor. He handed her a fluffy towel, one of the ones he knew she saved for when she was treating herself, grinned as she bowed her head and blushed. She grabbed a tub of cocoa butter and he followed her back into the bedroom, snagging the polaroid on his way. He watched as she sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing cocoa butter between her palms, soothing it over her skin. Raised the camera and caught her just as she was looking up at him, hands framing her stomach, ‘I wish you could see you how I see you.’

‘I’m naked, Mulder.’

‘And a good investigator, clearly,’ he smirked before turning to rummage in her drawers, pulling out a soft t-shirt – one he thought he had lost three years into working together – and a pair of her cotton panties, dropping them at the foot of the bed. The sonograms and Scully’s bag were still there, and he moved the bag to the doorway and gathered the two grainy grey images with the two polaroids he’d taken and placed them on the side table. He took the moisturiser from her when she was done, and the damp towel, and returned them both to the bathroom before rejoining. She was just shrugging into the t-shirt, her back to him, and he couldn’t help but admire the pale flesh of her legs, the curve of her ass. ‘Beautiful.’

‘Is that all you can say?’

‘I think that right now it’s what you need to hear. Turn around.’

She did, rolling her eyes as he held the camera up, ‘Mulder, it’s late...’

‘Still, I don’t want to waste a minute. Put your hand on your bump, there, like that,’ he snapped a photo, dropping it to the table when it printed and twirling his finger in the air, ‘turn to the side, there, perfect-‘ another photo, and another when she moved her hand and smiled, ‘kicked?’

‘Mmhm. The later it gets, the more active they are.’

‘Maybe you should just become nocturnal.’

She snorted, parried back, ‘maybe I should have considered your insomnia when considering fathers.’

‘Touché. Pull your top up like you did earlier,’ he nodded when she did, taking another photo, waving it absently as he stared at her, love-struck, as she walked over to him.

‘That’s enough, Mulder,’ she slipped the camera from his grasp, put a hand to his shoulder and raised to her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips, ‘it’s late and I’m tired.’

‘Of course. Sleep. You’ve got a baby to grow,’ he turned her around, helped her into bed, dropped a series of kisses to her forehead, her nose, her crown, adding three more for every giggle she gave, and then settled down on his side, behind her. She rolled into his grasp, the bump nestled between them, and he wormed his hand under her shirt to cup her belly, smoothing over the warm, buttered skin, fingering the pink stretch marks striping her like a tiger. Before he flicked the light off, she picked up the camera from where she’d placed it on her bedside table, pulling her shirt up once more and linking her free hand with his, right where she could feel the baby pressing, and took a photo of them, discarding both camera and picture without looking, and nodding for him to switch his lamp off.

‘I love you too, Mulder.’

**Author's Note:**

> Now go brush your teeth after all that saccharine sweetness.


End file.
